brand of indignation, she would go to great lengths to avoid needlessly provoking the Prince. When she felt herself to be on the receiving end of his anger, before her characteristic defiance set in I often saw a look of trepidation cross her face, as if she were once again a small girl in trouble with the grown-ups. Though not his fault, I believe it joined with other fears deep within her to produce much of the temperamental instability that increasingly became his experience of her and from which, eventually, he would do anything to escape.
Speculating about the innermost secrets of the Waleses’ marriage has often been a national pastime, at least according to the media. There is a horrifying fascination about watching other people’s relationships disintegrating. The tour I had just finished had theoretically given me the chance to indulge such voyeuristic fascination at close range, but this was not an appropriate pastime for a member of staff.
The Prince and Princess were generally considerate enough with their staff and with each other to avoid all but a few public displays of their private problems. Whatever we staff saw or heard – including an obvious aversion for each other’s company in private – we played along with the image, to outsiders, subordinates and anyone else who might ask us for royal gossip. In fact, especially during the public acrimony of the separation a few years later, I often wondered if mine was the only dinner table in the country where the subject was banned.
By the time I awoke from an exhausted sleep on our homeward flight we were already over Italy. Far below, tiny lights reminded me of the existence of another world beyond the darkened aircraft and its dozing royal cargo. Outside this warm cocoon, like the chill air of the stratosphere, the real world waited. In time it would claim me back from princesses, palaces, caviar and good whisky.
That’s OK, I thought. I’m only here till my time’s up. Then the real world can have me back. But until then I’ll enjoy the ride. I settled lower into the broad, comfortable seat. Idly I noticed the embroidered logo. How thrifty of the RAF to acquire seats from the defunct British Caledonian Airways. I dozed again, joined in my dreams by uninvited air stewardesses in tartan uniforms.
Some part of my brain, however, continued obstinately to play and replay scenes from the tour. The images and the restless thoughts that accompanied them would not switch off. It was the start of a mental treadmill, conscious and subconscious, which still turns 10 years later.
This may have been because the people and issues involved demanded a huge commitment from anyone involved in running the Wales production. For me, given my background and idealistic personality, that commitment became total. Unfortunately, the problems we were beginning to encounter in sustaining the marriage and the public image were to prove insoluble. Soon, the knowledge that we were fighting a losing battle in an atmosphere that could not countenance failure sometimes became very bad for morale. My sense of total commitment then became focused on one person – the Princess – and that put too great a burden of expectation on us both.
Back in my snug seat on the VC-10, unhappy thoughts and dim glimpses of the future chased each other round my head. Some things stood out clearly, even if their accuracy and full significance would only emerge later.
When they were working together, the Prince and Princess created a dynamism that was phenomenal. I had seen examples of it during the tour, especially during formal ceremonial moments. The effect of their arrival at something as staid as a diplomatic banquet left me in no doubt about their power. The world’s most glamorous couple, the perfect mixture of regal gravitas and youthful beauty, could provoke a reaction among even the most jaded guests, inured to real emotion by years of protocol. I sat next to enough of these government hospitality veterans to observe the look of surprised, almost embarrassed awe – quickly suppressed – that this embodiment of living royalty inspired as it shone its two famous faces upon them.
Unfortunately, the stresses it laid on the owners of these public faces created powerful polarizing forces. These two egos were a match for any number of awestruck looks, and sharing the spotlight did not bring out the best in either of them. A reluctance to work as a team would inexorably drive them apart – he to resume a long-accustomed pattern of solo engagements, she to seek an undefined, independent new role.
It would be nice, but sadly false, to claim an inspired prescience about the events that were to follow. Based on my observations during the tour, however, added to what I had learned in a year at St James’s, even I could see that my employers seldom worked as a team any more. If the stars were uncomfortable sharing top billing, then it was logical to think that they might be happier not sharing the same spotlight.
Two contrasting images stayed in my mind. The first was a glimpse of intimacy which I had never seen before, and which I was never to see again. The VC-10 had landed at one of our many ports of call – I think it was Abu Dhabi. As the plane taxied sedately towards the waiting red carpet, band, guard of honour and ruling family, the usual controlled bedlam broke out inside. There was not the remotest chance that we would ‘remain seated until the captain has switched off the “fasten seatbelts” sign’, or heed similar airline-style safety sense. Half the cabin was on its feet before we had even turned off the runway.
Valet and dresser headed forward to the royal compartment to tend to their charges. The private secretary, waking violently from a well-deserved doze, began urgently reading his programme. The police were squinting through the portholes as if to satisfy themselves that no suicide bombers were lying obviously in wait, while anxiously trying to get their hand-held radios to talk sense. The press secretary was at another porthole, awkwardly trying to glimpse the position of the rat pack. It seemed that only the secretaries were calmly staying put, looking out at the latest stretch of baking tarmac and methodically gathering their cabin baggage.
Supercharged with energy, I was hunting in the back of the capacious travelling wardrobe – one of our more essential ‘extras’ which the RAF helpfully fitted into the aircraft to accommodate the yards of hanging luggage. It lay immediately aft of the royal compartment and through the partly open door the Prince and Princess could be seen conducting their more elegant version of the scenes in the main cabin. Scrabbling between the gently swaying, beautifully wrapped dresses and coats, I eventually found my ceremonial sword and stood up to buckle it on.
I was still tugging my tunic into place and trying to calm my accelerating pulse when, unseen by anyone else, I noticed the Prince lightly place a hand on the Princess’s hip. It was the kind of small, encouraging gesture that might pass between any happily married couple about to face a common ordeal.
I felt an unexpected glow that such things were still possible between them. This was only slightly diminished by the further observation that the touch lasted for only a moment, and was not reciprocated. Also, there was something about the angle of the hip – which was all I could see of her – that made me think the Princess did not welcome it.
The second image came from an incident, probably related, which occurred soon afterwards. As soon as the doors opened, the activity that had been fermenting in the confines of the aircraft’s fuselage burst out into the glaring sunshine, as the supporting cast hurried down the aft gangway in time to see the Prince and Princess regally descending the front steps. I paused by the cargo hold long enough to ensure that actual violence did not erupt between our forthright baggage master and those less Welsh sent to help him, before joining the rest of the entourage in the blessed cool of the royal terminal.
It was the usual procedure. In a symbolic act of welcoming courtesy, the royal host offered his guests coffee as they sat on ornate armchairs while, at right angles, the gaggle of accompanying officials from both sides sat opposite each other on long sofas. Into the space in the middle were shepherded the press corps, who had half a minute to take the sort of staged pictures that are the staple diet of mainstream reports on all such airport encounters. After the press were shooed out, a further awkward five minutes had to be filled with small talk while energetic old men in beards refuelled our coffee cups.
The royal host and his senior guest were sticking manfully to their scripts, while the rest of us thought it polite to pretend not to be able to hear the stilted pleasantries. Plainly uncomfortable, the Princess was not joining in either, nor was she being invited to by the Prince or her host.
She